Pain_Man

Thanks! Forgive my medication-addled brain, but have you moved to Virginia yet? (If that is you...) They're already having their first Nor'easter on the Right Coast. Welcome to American Weather! I'm sure you've heard the joke 500 times already, "If you don't like it, wait ten minutes, it'll change." Snow flurries were spotted in Florida on Wednesday. Gonna be a nasty winter I'm afraid.

Yeah, we have. & Thanks. 'Specially since we both share an interest in the history of WWII. An aside: we were watching something on Discovery, one of those "science" channels, and they were doing a story on Darwin (which was actually about the problems they have with crocs). And I told my wife that the Japanese had bombed Darwin during the war. She was surprised. She had no idea, unfortunately, like most Americans, that Australia had been bombed. Nor, as I told her, of the absolute heroism and soldierly skill of both Australian and NZ troops and the roll they played in the Pacific War. The defense of Port Moresby is one of the outstanding examples of gallantry and bravery in the war. Sadly too few of us also know--since history classes tend to conveniently to forget this--that we were late to the party in both World Wars. To the immense cost in lives and wealth for our (eventual) Allies. Had we not had our thumb in our collective ass, our former Enemies would have done a lot less damage.

@blu: You helped put things into perspective and I appreciate that. I've made the decision to more careful of what I'm saying and to try not to contribute to the impression--sometimes fair, sometimes not--that Americans are egotistical pricks with an inflated sense of their own personal importance. Just because I have an inflated sense of my own importance, , doesn't mean that all of us do. And I've personally been embarassed when I was in France by "ugly Americans"; you know: wankers wearing cowboy hats, big belt buckles and talking as loudly as possible and "How cum I cain't find no one who speaks Amurrican?" ("Cause you're a fuckin' arsehole and these Frenchies don't want nothing to do with you!") I was sometimes grateful I spoke French well enough to pass for, if not French, at least not American. And that's a weird feeling. Something I'd forgotten over the years. I've always felt that was the problem, esp with email. It's almost a one dimension medium of communcation. Things come across so flatly that they can easily be mistaken for meaning things they don't. And I'm not unaware of my flaws. You put it perfectly: the fingers get ahead of the brain. And later, I think this has probably happened to all of us, we've read something, an email or a post, where we were cringe, "Why the hell did I write that?!" I remembering reading an article--don't laugh I was in my dr's office--in American Latina magazine about a reporter who was severely depressed. She fired off one of those "To ALL" emails basically ranting and spewing a bunch of crap. It literally ruined her career. The email got passed around to newspaper staffs all over the US. She couldn't get hired as a weather girl. Her journalism career was finished. The irony is, she bounced back and became a highly paid speaker of the Lecture Circuit. I've done the same. Just last yr, without going into details, I'd had rather a LOT too much to drink and fired off an email to a person who used to be close to me. It was the kind of thing one writes when drunk and pissed. Reading it later--'cause I hardly remembered writing it--was a painful experience. Sometimes I wish all email clients had a "HOLD QUEUE" that keeps emails from going out for 12 hours so you can make sure you wanna send that. It could save a lot of grief. Perhaps I am wrong here, but I got the impression that some Aussies (is that an offensive term? It's used so commonly here--in the US--that we tend to use it unconsciously) thought I was taking shots at their country. Which I wasn't. I have strong beliefs about various things. I just forget sometimes that other people a.) disagree and/or b.) don't really give rodent colons what I think about things. Thanks. And we did have a good one.

One note about the lawsuits by the RIAA. They've been sued themselves for violating the laws they are supposedly trying to protect. And there are calls for criminal investigations of the RIAA for their blatantly illegal tactics. You have to be caught, usually by your IP addressing being traced (why people doing this don't just use IP anonymizing software boggles my mind), having downloaded Typically, the run "stings", usually in chat rooms or via P2P networks. They have people who offer to trade music tracks. This, in itself, is a violation of the DMCA! Yet they have the hypocrisy to then sue people who are doing that same thing. People are starting to fight back. One woman who's been sued by these Nazi bastards has sued them. (To make a long story short, her son left an unencrypted 'Net router active in her house after he'd moved out and took his computer with him. A neighbor used it to download thousands of songs.) Instead of settling with these blackmailers, she's fighting them. And, so far, she's winning in court. I hope the Australian Senate has the power to stop this. Or the Commons (proper term?) has the sense to vote it down or amend it until it's at least only somewhat insane. got some legal music to download. From www.emusic.com. Their format is MP3, so there's no consumer-f*cking DRM crap to deal with. You just pay your monthly fee and you can download the songs. Naturally, they don't have the latest, most currently stuff. But their "Classical" section is large and quite varied. And they do have a lot of indie labels if you're in to alternative, punk, etc.

We'd love to have you, Shamus. Unfortunately, if you're looking to flee fuckhead politicians, this ain't the place to come. In fact, I don't think there's any place that's free of said dickheads. It's not so much that "power corrupts" it's that "money kills brain cells." A journalist once proved that whether you got to speak to your Congressperson depended on how much money you'd donated to them. If you'd donated the maximum for that "election cycle" ($10K I think), you almost always get through. If you donated nothing or $50, you're lucky to get to talk to some unpaid intern who takes your number and promises "we'll look into your issue." And then promptly round files it. The best lack all conviction While the worst are filled with passionate intensity In 18th century England and 19th century America, the corruption was out in the open and exposed, "honest" if you will in that they didn't try to hide it. Now the politicians simply pass laws to make the overt forms (money for votes) illegal but make tons of other kinds perfectly legal. I.e. You can't bribe Senator C. Anine Asshole, but you can hire his kid at $500,000 a year. That's perfectly. Hell, you can hire Sen. Asshole's wife! And many a Congressperson leaves Congress and then goes to work, for gigantic salaries, for the very lobbying firms or corporations that used to donate money to their campaigns!!

I hope no one thinks I'm taking any swipes at Australia in this post. I'm sorry to say, neocracker, that many other countries have been following our Congress' stupidity before this. Finland, not that long ago, passed a law even stricter than our idiotic DMCA. But the law in this article borders on the surreal. I have to say that my jaw dropped when I read this. This would make nearly everyone in Australia an "infringer." My grandmother (who's 80) sets her VCR to tape her soap opera when she makes her annual trips to her home state. Under this law, were she in Australia, she'd be a felon! This law could also impact tourism. Image flying down to Australia and from XYZ and you've got your iPod with you for the 17 or 24 hour flight, whatever it is. And customs examines it and then you get thrown in the Gray Bar Hotel! Or, at the least, lose your $350 iPod. Word of stuff like that gets around. I'm not an American lawyer, let alone versed in Australian law, so perhaps someone else can answer this question: Do the courts have the power to throw laws like this out? This would never stand in the US (I say this simply as a matter of fact). It would violate the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, as well as probably half a dozen Supreme Court decisions. Police would have to have a warrant or "probable cause" to believe a felony is in progress before they could stop you on the street. And they would definitely have to have a warrant to search one's iPod (et al) for so-called "infringing" media. We do have one common sense law in this area in the US (I'm not implying that other countries lack common sense). The name has eluded me, I think it's called the American Home Recording Act of 1990. But basically it makes copying one's CDDAs perfectly legal. CDRs have a special tax on them, several pennies, that goes into a fund that's paid out to the record labels for their supposed "losses" due to people copying legally purchased CDs and passing them to friends. In spite of these payments, some record companies are using consumer screwing technology to try and block copying of CDs (yet they still keep taking the payments!) At least one congressman has called for amending the law to stop the payments to record companies producing so-called "protected" CDDAs. Naturally, this has gone nowhere. The record companies are organized and make large donations to Congressmen and Senators. Consumers aren't and don't. (Tho' I did donate $50 bucks to my party; a lot of good that did on 7 Nov.)

I see. I put this in the wrong place. Whoops!

I'm sorry this is as long as it is. Brevity is not one of my strong suits. Nay-the-less, I ask that you read it. A small avifaunal lifeform has brought it to my attention that certain people have taken umbrage at certain of my posts, replies, etc. Sometimes I let my temper override my good sense. Sometimes I let my enthusiasm for certain things (politics is one) override good manners. Sometimes, like most of us, I can be an asshole. It was never my intention to alienate anyone or offend anyone. But clearly, I've been, on occasion, too strident in expressing my beliefs.. I also realize that I'm going to torque some people no matter what I write or do. That's just life. And whether it's believed or not, I really haven't had the intention of giving offense. I've thought of myself, since back in the Days We No Longer Mention (i.e. before the Sith struck), as one of the "firm"--I believe is the Brit expression. If not one of the inner circle, at least not a stranger. I lack the technical knowledge that many of that circle possess; I've tried to help the cause with donations. Some have felt I've slighted their country or their favorite sport. (I'm sorry, but I just do NOT get soccer/football's attraction and I doubt I ever will; the irony is that soccer's the only organized sport I ever played. Not so ironic was the fact that our team sucked, we were 1-15.) I'm a patriot and I have no problems with other people's patriotism. But I understand, or rather it has been brought to my attention, that I have injected things into my posts that, at least some people, feel aren't appropriate to either the spirit or the purpose of this board. I always thought the "Chat" section was precisely for that. I.e. things that didn't necessarily relate to IB or its interoperability with other software/hardware. The only thing I can really say is that I shall try to be less vehement, try not to give offense. I realize that sometimes what I don't think is offensive obviously can be to eyes other than mine. In short, if I've pissed you off or offended you, I do apologize for that. Several of you I consider friends. Two of you close friends. I would like for that circle to expand. It's rare to find such a concentrated number of intellectuals and brilliant people. Even my wife's eyes glaze over when I start to talk computer. (Fair's fair, so in return, I am treated to Astrology.) I need to take my father's advice, given me many, many years ago: When in doubt: SHUT THE FUCK UP. Not the easiest advice for someone like me to follow; someone whose idea of the importance of his own ideas is, perhaps exaggerated. And, perhaps, there's no "perhaps" about that. My sense of humor has probably also played apart in alienating some of the Members. It's hard to face, but it is the truth: other people don't find me nearly as funny as I find my self (I realize that's leaving a great big target, an opportunity that, no doubt, will not be missed. But I don't mind; in fact I welcome it. I enjoy a good zinger. I don't have a problem with fun made at my expense, as long as it's not intentionally cruel.) This isn't exactly intended as a mea culpa, but rather an attempt to explain to those who I've pissed off that it wasn't my intention (a few times aside) to do so. Whether this matters or not, I don't know. I only hope that it's take in the manner intended.

Grasshopper, "Newbie" not in post count is, in the heart it is. Y'all didn't know the Blind Guy was really Yoda in his youth, didja?

I did realize that this was back up (so to speak) for several months. Otherwise my post total would be rather higher. Seems I just can't keep my mouth shut or my fingers still.

Thanks, Lightning. As for choosing a slower burning time, I've tested this. DIP scans don't really change when the burn is done at 2.4x (which takes a helluva lot longer than doing it at 6x, esp with a verify; tho' rated at up to 8x, these Verbs, at least for me, never burn faster than an avg of 6 and change). I have discs that have scanned in the 50s that still play with no errors. I'm still on the fence about the, how should I put, the real world utility of DIP's scans. People talk about their being a "longevity" predictor. Yet the discs with the crappy scans tend to be some of the oldest ones I've burnt. So, I'm still not sure. We'll see what happens when the disc is watched. "Duff"? Y'all do have your own way of talking English. Like Bernard Shaw said: Two peoples separated by a common language.

My hometown's team in 8-2, in first place. Their running back (half back) is being called the best player in Football (not soccer). he's already smashing records right and left. And he's a genuinely nice guy. There's a hard combination to beat in any sport. Think of Barry Bonds! Here's an article: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6195886...T=HCP>1=8807

Thanks crule. You may be right. As I said, I've only seen this behavior once (perhaps twice) before and it was when I was copying a copy, not copying from the original. Hopefully it will play fine as the damn thing still cost $2 US ea. (1.2 pounds? We no longer have pound sterling symbols on our keyboards.) How's your football team doing? My hometown team is No. 1 in their division. Might even make the playoffs this year. Have a tremendously talented running back, who's already busting up records like they were made of vinyl.

I have gotten an error during the verification of burn to a Verbatim +R DL. I've seen this error before, when making a copy of a copy. The ripping of the original disk and then the burning to the new disc. The disc content, is of course, legal. Only for privacy's sake, , is the title removed. I tried both "Try Again" and "Continue" buttons but to no avail. Each time IB returned the same pop up but with a different sector. Rather than post half a dozen pictures, I'm only posting one since it only differs from the others in the sector number. When this happened before the disk scanned without issue and played without a problem. I haven't scanned this disc in question or watched it. I am a lot a loss to under this error or what it means. I'd be grateful for any help I can get. Thx. This pop up occured: This is the ImgBurn log: Below is the DIP Write/Verify Graph from DIP (if it's of help): Here's the scan: Obviously one would prefer better (94-95% Quality). The only thing that concerns me is the tall, red line. Still I've seen much, much worse scans.

Thanks.

Thanks for the info. Buy.com has it for $331. It's sold out so it sounds like its a popular one. 2000:1 contrast. No other monitor I've seen comes close. 1300:1 is the highest I've seen.

@Jason: I'm the first one to admit I know little about NZ. Can't name your PM (while I can Australia's, Howard, right? He was at Steven Irwin's funeral). The Moas, that gigantic Eagle, the Maoris fighting the British using British tactics. My knowledge is quite scanty. One thing's for sure from the Lord of the Rings films, it's one of the most beautiful places on Earth. So I can quite understand your love for it. Yeah, about 2 weeks ago on thursday and friday, we had hot days. Last week on thursday and friday, it rained all day. We also tend to run out of water on farms down south during the summer (due to no rain). Also, the desert road (it goes through the middle of the north island, between two mountains I believe) can be closed for a couple of days during the winter because of excess snow fall. I found a story about the Great Fire of Hawera. Link: http://www.taranakimuseum.org.nz/en/storie...ers/bigfire.asp I love stories, especially interesting old ones like this one. I also like the titanic disaster.

M-80s, M-100s, M-1000s (a quarter stick of dynamite if memory serves) have been illegal in California for as long as I can remember (25+ yrs). My brother, one time, went down to Mexico with a friend's family. He came back with a big ass sack full of M-80s. Jesus, did he and his friends got nuts with those. They even killed a dog (accidentally) by throwing them into the yard. They'd light them and drop them in our swimming pool to watch them explode under water. Big gray ball that would float to the surface then dissipate as smoke. But they are not to be fucked around with. My older, half-brother (by another mother) blew off the first knuckle of his right index finger with an M-80. they are not to be screwed around with. Even those dry-ice "bombs" are illegal under Federal law. (That is where you take a quantity of dry ice chips and put them in a 2-liter pop bottle. As it melts, or subliminates, whatever the terms is when a solid bypassed liquid state and goes straight to gas, the bottle expands and then explodes. More than one kids has found himself hauled out of the local cop shop by the Feds. They don't usually press charges. Just getting picked up by the FBI--or is it ATF?--is enough to constrict most people's pucker.

What's the LG yadda yadda yadda?

I bought my new machine, similar to the quote I posted. Now I need to buy a flat panel monitor--but I can't make up my mind. There are a lot of choices out there--and the price range in bewildering, often for the same damn monitor! The video card is the Crossfire dual X1950 512MB (which is really 1GB of DDR3 memory). So I need a pretty bad ass monitor to enjoy the card to the fullest. I'm leaning toward a Viewsonic, but... ...I'd like any recommendations that y'all have. Especially the brands not to buy. I don't think I want a widescreen. Most of the video games I play are FPS and WS's don't leave very much room at the top, a serious handicap when 14 demon/alien/enemy soldiers are coming down on your ass with heavy weapons. Or, am I misinformed about that? I know most of them can be tilted 90 degrees, or more, but that just changes the reduced viewing area from horizontal to vertical. On the other hand, a 22 to 24in WS would enable me to watch movies as well as have a lot of windows open (I like to drive my machines as hard as I can...) My Gateway won't get here for another seven days ( ) so I've got some time. "Help, IB Forum, this is not even close to my most desperate hour." But I don't know a more intelligent and well-informed group to turn to for advice. Thanks.

I get a little touchy sometimes. Now that there's no longer a Soviet behemoth threatening the planet with a global KGB, bitching at America and stabbing us in the back is the favored sport amongst some (incl. amonst Leftist Americans). That's why I hoped you meant it the way you did. I never begrudge anyone their own patriotism. It's a healthy thing. It's nationalism that's caused so much misery, death, genocide. It took the place that organized religion (i.e. Catholicism against "heresy, Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy, Christendom vs. Islam, Protestantism vs. Catholicism) had as a motivator for crimes against humanity from 1095 (the First Crusade) to 1648 (the Thirty Years War). (And you can extend that in England to 1689 and in France until the death of the "Sun" King in 1715.) The film Kingdom of Heaven HIGHLY recommended. It's not terribly historically accurate in the details, but it captures the spirit of the time and the religious madness so recently revived in that very same part of the world. It also has amazing sfx, action and superb performances by Orlando "Legolas" Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons (is there a movie lately he's not in?), Martin "Celeborn" Csokas, and Andrew "I Live With Salma Hayek" Norton as the Leper King Baldwin of Jerusalem. We saw the consequences of rabid, exclusive nationalism from the 1661 to 1994. (Roughly, from Louis XIV's invasion of modern Belgium, "The War of Devolution" to the wars in the former Yugoslavia.) This is the 21st century. Now we're in the century of small groups of sociopaths running about the planet killing on a mass scale for the sheer joy of murder. The body count's decreased geometrically, but I'm not sure it's an improvement. After all, one tactical nuke in NYC, London, Paris, Moscow...the consequences of that don't really need to be imagined. Unfortunately, the people who now control our Congress have absolutely no concept of this. it's only gonna get worse from here. Yes, thats what I mean. I know, I know, don't mean what you say but say what you mean .

Well, that was kinda of the point. I didn't want it to be thought that I was trying to one up ya. So I did what I usually do when I think there is (or might be) some tension: I self-deprecate. Have you seen Quills? It's basically fiction very loosely based on the Comte de Sade's life. It's worth a viewing but I wouldn't buy the DVD. Jeffrey Rush gives his usual psycho-escaped from the looney bin performance. If only the script had been stronger....or Kate nakeder oftener... It also stars my wife's little sister--that's a family joke. There's a remarkable resemblance between my wife and Kate Winslet (sp?).

Crule!!! Not Florida! It's a sewer. You'd be much better off choosing Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, even Idaho, Wyoming or Montana (if you can deal with the sub-arctic climate in the winter; makes Scotland look like an indoor park). Unless, of course, you like hurricanes and two inch long roaches* and alligators that have been known to snack on kids (*and I'm not talking about the kind that are cool to find). Not to mention that Florida's the only state in the US with tropical and sub-tropical jungle. No, Florida's a shit hole. My parents went to Miami for the '94 Superbowl and they were appalled at just how disgusting it was. Southern California is a far more beautiful, far more comfortable place to live. Well, it was when I was a kid. Now it's makes the late USSR look a capitalist haven. The People's Republic of California is no joke, mi amigo.

I know Western Europe has similar issues. I remember a row (love that word) between Paris on London because the Frogs were doing nothing to stop illegal aliens from using the Chunnel to enter England. Any rich country next to a poor country is going to have a problem with illegal immigration. As long as our countries are having to build fences to keep fuckers out we must be doing something. Immigration is not, per se, a bad thing. It's one of the reasons we aren't facing the demographic crises that Japan (especially) but also Western Europe are facing. Nearly every West European country has either negative or very low (1%+) population growth. Our population is growing at about 3%/yr. Militarily this is good news. But also for the economy. We are not nearly the inverted pyramid of massive numbers of retirees being supported by an ever diminishing number of young workers. Our entitlements are imminently fixable. The only thing lacking is the will to do something. Now that the Hard Core Left of the Democratic Party controls Congress, you can be damned sure NOTHING will be done about it. They were successful at blocking the necessary reforms as a minorty. As the majority, no meaning proposals will ever see the light of day. E.g.: in Italy, 60% of Italian kids are onlys! Here in the US European-American women have an average of 3.4 kids (I wanna meet one of the .4's). Mexican, Central, South American immigrant women have an average of 5. Parents, i.e. voters, with one child are far more likely to favor a wimp-ass foreign policy (sorry to tip-toe around it) than a country where families have 3 to 5 kids. Our conscription laws, for example, always exempt the youngest son so that the family named won't become extinct. If there's every another draft, it's almost certainly going to include women. Sooner or later the insane error of putting women in front line combat units will be made; hell it's already the defacto reality anyway. We should have followed the Israeli example. They tried women in front-line units. It was a mess. Not because men felt "protective" of women soldiers, but because the men exerted themselves, often fatally, in order to impress their women comrades with their studliness. When the metal hits the meat, studliness don't mean shit. Ask any combat veteran. A study done by the US Army analyzing WWII found that only 25% of soldiers actually fired their weapons at the enemy. Most hunkered down and did the nature, if not exactly admirable, thing. The Islamofacsists aren't going away except by way of the nine grams of lead cure. And.... ....it's just that simple.